


The Ranger and the Cleric

by David_Ginsberg



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Dungeons & Dragons References, Generation Gap, Good Sibling Jonathan Byers, Internalized Homophobia, Jonathan Byers Has Powers, Lonnie Byers Being an Asshole, Lonnie Byers Gets What's Coming to Him, M/M, Middle School Relationships, Neil Hargrove Being an Asshole, Neil Hargrove Gets What's Coming To Him, One-Sided Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, POV Multiple, Period-Typical Homophobia, Protective Jim "Chief" Hopper, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Fantasy, Supportive Mike Wheeler, Telepathy, Will Byers Has PTSD, Will Byers Has Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 25
Words: 18,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27178951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/David_Ginsberg/pseuds/David_Ginsberg
Summary: Eleven wasn't the only experiment let loose in Hawkins. But it's anybody's guess how the party will react to Fourteen and Fifteen.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers & Joyce Byers, Jonathan Byers & Will Byers, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Will Byers/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 45





	1. The Cabin

**Author's Note:**

> The story picks up in Season 2, Episode 9, with the Byers and Nancy in Hopper's cabin.

**Jonathan Byers**

Will’s body had Mom in a chokehold, far more powerful than he could have managed by himself. His mind was almost gone completely. There was only the faintest whisper of a plea for help submerged in whatever had infected him. It didn’t think in words, only pulsating sensations of anger and power and, as the heat rose, pain. Suddenly, the pain overtook everything else, and a black cloud flew out of Will’s mouth. When I went back inside Will, there was still pain, but it was Will’s pain, mixed with an unearned helping of guilt.

_I killed Bob._

Inside his mind, I tried to make him feel better. _It’s not your fault._

In the physical realm, I pressed the call button on his walkie-talkie, and messaged Hopper to close the gate.

“Ok, let’s turn down the heat,” I suggested.

“No,” Will murmured, “no more cold.”

“Ok, leave the heat on, but we need to get Will a decent bed. He’s still pretty weak.”

Mom picked Will up and laid him on what I’m pretty sure was 11’s bed. As she tucked him in, she noticed a spot on his wrist where the restraints had rubbed away the concealer.

“What is this?” She rubbed some more, revealing a number: 015. “Did Owens do this to you?”

Will moaned something unintelligible.

“Mom, maybe now isn’t the time.”

“What do you mean now isn’t the time? Did you know about this?”

“Can we please just focus on Will now?”

“Jonathan, your nose is bleeding.”

“Shit.” I instinctively moved to wipe my nose with my wrist, but Mom grabbed my arm before I could. I was sweating and it didn’t take much for her to rub the concealer off.

“Fourteen.”

Without even trying to, I could hear her thoughts.

_What’s going on? What happened to my boys? My boys! MYBOYSMYBOYSMYBOYS!_

“Mom, please try to calm down.”

“I am perfectly calm,” she scoffed.

_NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO!_

“You’re not, you’re pretending to be, but you’re not.” Normally, I have to focus on seeing into someone else's mind, but Mom was so upset that I had to concentrate on blocking out her emotions.

“Why would you think that?”

“I can tell what you’re thinking, we both can.”

“Shit, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Dad made me promise not to and after that, I just didn’t want to upset you.”

From the bed, Will groaned.

“Mom, can we please just let Will rest now and talk about this when he’s better?”

“Ok, but you’re telling me everything.”

“OK.”

When Will had gotten fully to sleep, I went outside to cool off. Nancy followed me.

“Do you think they’ll get through?”

“Who?”

“Eleven and Hopper.”

“I don’t know.”

“You can’t see the future?”

“I’m a mind-reader not a fortune teller.”

“So, have you been reading my mind this entire time?”

“Not since last year.”

“Why not?”

“Sometimes, when you look into someone else’s mind, you don’t like what you see.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just, I’ve found over the years that when people are thinking about me they aren’t always thinking nice things. If you thought I was a pretentious creep, I didn’t want to spend all of Trig class hearing about it.”

“I don’t think you’re pretentious.”

“What about creepy?”

“I mean, reading people’s minds without telling them…”

“How about this, I promise always to tell you when I’m reading your mind.”

“How are you going to do that?”

_Like this._


	2. Sleepy Head

**Will Byers**

The first thing I was conscious of was Jonathan’s voice inside my head.

_It’s ok, buddy. Eleven closed the gate._

“Mmmphg.”

I opened my eyes. I could see clearly, without the distortion from the shadow monster. I couldn’t feel it either. It was gone.

“Jonathan?”

“Hey.”

“Where…where am I?”

“You’re in Hopper’s cabin.”

The memories came rushing back into my head. Halloween, the lab, Bob.

“Jonathan….I…I killed Bob.”

“You didn’t kill it, the monster…”

“I let it in,” I started to tear up in spite of myself, “I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Do you remember in the shed?” I tried to get in your head, but I couldn’t even find you. It was so strong. But you got through, you tapped out a message in morse code, to…”

“Close the gate?”

“Yeah, and Eleven closed the gate. Without you we wouldn’t have known what to do. _You_ saved us Will. You saved everybody.”

“Everybody?”

“Dustin and Lucas and Mike Eleven and Max, they’re all fine. Actually, Mom and Hopper are trying to keep them from rushing in here to see you. And I think Max is officially in your party now.”

“Eleven’s here?” I had never actually met her, although we must have passed close by one another in the lab.

“Yeah, you want me to let them in?”

“Um…I need to use the bathroom first.”

I changed out of the hospital gown into some pajamas and used the bathroom before going into the living room of the cabin. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin almost knocked me over before catching me in a tight hug.

“I was so worried about you.”

“Is this Eleven?”

“Yeah.”

“Hello, Will.”

“Thanks for, um, you know, everything.”

Jonathan was rifling through the fridge. “Does Hopper eat anything but Eggos?”

“I think those are for me.”

“Ok, how about we take you back to our house and I’ll make you a real breakfast.”

“Ok.” She sounded oddly disappointed.

“You ride back with Mom and the boys can ride with me.”

I got in the front seat of Jonathan’s car, with Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Max crammed into the backseat. Jonathan glanced over at me as he started the engine.

_Mom knows about the lab._

_What?_

_Not everything, but she saw your number. She made me promise to tell her when you got better._

_What about…_

_Nancy knows, but the boys don’t. She won’t tell Mike._

_Does Mom know about the other thing?_

_I didn’t tell her. I can talk to her if you want._

_No!_

_Ok, but she suspects something already._

_I know. I just don’t want to disappoint her._

Jonathan sighed and looked back at the road. When we got home he busied himself in the kitchen making pancakes while Mom called Mrs. Wheeler.

“Yeah, they’re at my place…they’re going straight to school…Listen, I think Will’s coming down with something, so keep an eye on Mike in case he caught it…”

I looked over at Mike. He was staring at Eleven, and not really paying attention to anyone else. I worked up my courage, and went into his mind.

_I’m never going to lose her again. I love her more than anything in the world._

I broke off and looked down at my plate. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

Jonathan insisted I eat, and when the guys left he sat down across from Mom at the table. Nancy sat next to him.

“Ok, what happened with you and the lab?” Mom asked.

“Do you remember when he got a job there? I was nine and Will was five.”

“Yes.”

“He’d take us when you went to work, and Dr. Brenner would have us practice seeing what someone else was thinking. He’d have them think of a number or a shape and we’d have to guess it.”

“What happened if you guessed wrong?”

“We didn’t guess wrong very often.”

“What happened, Jonathan!?”

“They had a cattle prod…”

Mom started crying. I could hear Jonathan’s voice in my head.

_Don’t look._

“How did they know you guys could do that?” Nancy asked.

“I think Dad figured it out. I remember when I was really little, and he used to get upset when I was making noise or Will was crying, I could tell what he was aiming for.”

“ _Aiming?_ ”

“Later on, he’d come home, and he’d seem alright, but I could sort of sense the anger underneath, and I’d tell Will to go hide in the shed before it came out. And then, I could tell when you were upset, too, mom. And after a while it wasn’t just feelings, it was the words you were thinking and the memories.”

“About me and Lonnie?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, god, Jonathan. I never meant for you to see that.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spy on you. But it was the only way we could keep ourselves safe.”


	3. Debriefing

**Nancy Wheeler**

I spent most of the next two days fantasizing about what I’d do to Lonnie Byers if I could just get him somewhere with no witnesses. The woods around Hawkins were full of good places to hide a body, and I was sure that no one would be too upset that he’d gone missing.

Jonathan interrupted me, mentally, in History.

_Just let it go._

_What?_

_Hurting him will just hurt us._

_Jonathan, he…_

_I know, but we would still be upset if something happened to him. Will more than me. I can’t explain why, it’s just part of me still…_

_You don’t have to explain._

_I promise I’d never be like him._

_You’re not. You’re so much better than him._

_Thanks. Anyway, I think we should talk to Steve._

_He’s not in school. I haven’t seen him since Monday night._

_Will thinks we should tell everyone about the lab._

_Who’s everyone?_

_Everyone who knows about Eleven. I think keeping the secret’s been weighing on him._

_I’ll bring Steve his homework after school._

_I’m sure he’ll love that._

_Tell him Saturday at Hopper’s cabin._

After school, I collected Steve’s homework and walked to his house. His mother answered the door.

“Steve’s out sick.”

“I know, I just came to bring him his homework.”

“I’ll give it to him.”

“Umm….there’s a pretty tricky chemistry problem set. Would you mind if I went up to explain it to him?”

“Alright,” she sighed, “but be quick about it.”

Steve was lying in bed.

“Your mom seems pissed,” I noticed that his face was covered in bruises. “What happened?”

“Billy Hargrove.”

“Max’s brother?”

“Stepbrother. They’re both very insistent on that, apparently.”

“Uh-huh. Do you think you’ll be free Saturday?”

“I think I’m grounded.”

“Could you sneak out? Hopper wants to debrief everyone.”

“Debrief? Does he think there’s more out there?”

“No, but then we thought that last year, and there’s another issue.”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t be the one to tell you. Just try to sneak out Saturday and I’ll show you to Hopper’s.”

Saturday morning, I convinced mom to let me borrow the car on the pretext that I wanted to go shopping in Bloomington. Steve was waiting by the road.

“This had better be good, Wheeler.”

“It’ll blow your mind, I promise.”

By the time we got to the cabin, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, Jonathan, and Joyce were already there, along with.

“Owens?”

“Oh, look. It’s the girl who’s been giving us so much trouble. Don’t worry, I promise I don’t have a bunch of goons waiting behind the door to drag you away.”

“And I don’t have my tape recorder with me.”

“Wait, that was you?” Mike sounded astonished.

“I couldn’t let Barb’s parents keep thinking…”

“They’ll get a very nice settlement.”

“That doesn’t make up for…”

“I know, but it’s the best we can do. We’ve stopped the experiments, but there’s still a lot of unfinished business with the lab. Which is what brings me here today.”

“There’s more stuff out there?” Dustin asked, sounding worried.

“Nothing that’s a threat, we think. We’ve been going through what’s left of the lab’s archives, and it looks like some of the um…test subjects…lived at the lab permanently, but others would travel to the lab for testing and return to their homes at the end of the day.”

“So there’s other experiments running around Hawkins?” Steve asked.

“In this very room.”

Jonathan and Will rolled up their sleeves simultaneously. Dustin was the first to notice the tattoos.

“Holy shit!”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mike asked.

“I…I…didn’t…” Will looked like he was about to cry.

“Forget it, it was a stupid question.”

“Dr. Brenner gave them very strict instructions not to,” Owens explained, “with a strong implication that it would compromise the safety of whoever they told.”

“So you were protecting us?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“And you have powers?”

“Not as cool as El. I can just see into other people’s minds.”

“That’s pretty awesome,” Dustin interjected.

“I never used it to cheat at D&D.”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“What?”

“After all this, you’re worried about D&D.”


	4. Running Up That Hill

**Jonathan Byers**

The nice thing about middle school dances is that they’re always over by nine. Nancy had to drive Mike home, so I was alone with Will. He was upset about the dance.

_I didn’t feel anything when I danced with Jennifer. Aren’t you supposed to feel something? I’m never going to outgrow this. Dad was right about me._

_No, he wasn’t._

_I didn’t realize you were listening._

_It’s ok._

_He is right, about me being a fag, I mean._

“Gay.”

“What?”

“You’re not a _fag._ You’re gay. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“It’s weird.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s bad. Remember what I said about Bowie and Kenny Rogers.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know, I keep having these weird daydreams about Mike.”

“I’ve seen, more than I want to, but all guys have those thoughts. I fantasize about Nancy.”

“She’s a _girl.”_

“And Mike’s a boy. But that doesn’t make you bad for having a crush on him. It’s just different.”

“He doesn’t like me back.”

“I know, but somebody will.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

I went back inside his head, which was continuing to spiral downward.

_Mike’s going to find out and he’s going to hate me. He’s going to tell Lucas and Dustin and they’re not going to be friends with me anymore and I’m going to be all alone and it’s going to upset Mom and Jonathan and…_

I dropped him off and then went back to pick up Nancy. I had convinced her to drive out to Bloomington to catch a midnight showing of _Paris, Texas._ It was a pretty long drive.

“You seem tense.”

“Yeah, uh, it’s Will.”

“What’s wrong? It seemed like he was having a good time at the dance. I think there might be something between him and Jennifer Hayes.”

“No, um,” He’d made me promise not to tell her, promise not to tell anyone. “It’s just, he’s still having a hard time with, you know, everything.”

It wasn’t a lie. The ‘now memories’ had gone, but there were still the regular memories. Post-traumatic stress, Hopper called it, which apparently manifested in the form of night terrors and memories of the Upside-Down that emerged seemingly at random. It was the last thing Will needed.

“I know, the whole last year has been terrible for Mike. And it’s rough on our parents, too.”

“They have no idea what’s really going on, do they?”

“No. They saw about Barb in the paper, but beyond that…”

“I just wish it had happened to me, instead of him.”

“He has you. That counts for something.”

“Maybe.”

“Trust me, you’re a lot better sibling than I manage to be.”

“That’s because your little brother’s kind of an asshole.”

Nancy laughed.

“I mean, no offense.”

“No, you’re right. But he’s a sweet asshole, if you catch him at the right time.”

“Yeah. Hey, I know people say shit about Will, and…I’m really glad Mike’s still friends with him.”

“It’s bullshit.”

“Huh?”

“What they say about your brother. It’s bullshit.”

I only wished Will realized that.


	5. The Checks

**Cynthia Ross**

The checks stopped coming at the worst possible time, two weeks after Nicholas was born. The government started sending them to Lonnie’s ex, since she had custody. There was no way I could work so soon after giving birth, and the money Lonnie got from fixing license plates wasn’t enough to cover the rent, let alone the expenses for the baby, so Lonnie had to get a job in a garage.

It had been a long time since Lonnie worked a regular job, and they would only hire him on as an assistant. He was always in a terrible mood when he came home, and the baby crying didn’t help things. It seemed like we were fighting all the time, and when Lonnie got mad, he wasn’t the Lonnie I’d fallen in love with.

I waited until Saturday morning. He hadn’t been drinking the night before, and he was calmer.

“Have you thought about calling the government and getting them to split the checks?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you’re the one who let them study the boys. Shouldn’t you be the one to get the checks?”

“They’ve got to pay Joyce off to keep her quiet. When Will went missing, she went around the bend totally, started telling people these crazy stories about the lab running freaky experiments. When that scandal about the chemicals or whatever broke, the lab didn’t want any more trouble, so they started giving her the money _I_ earned.”

I could tell he was starting to get worked up again, so I tried to mollify him. “That’s so unfair. I mean, you worked hard for them, and now they’re paying her just so she doesn’t sell some made up story to the papers?”

“I know, it’s crazy, right? Listen, babe. I’m going out for a walk. I’ll be back for dinner.”

He came back around 12:00. I could tell he’d been to the bar, so I just stayed in bed, hoping he’d be in a good mood, or if not, that he’d sleep it off. Through the thin wall between the bedroom and the kitchen, I could hear him on the phone with someone.

“Listen, Owens, I’ve got the goods on these kids and I’ve got paperwork to back it up. In a bank deposit box with instructions to send it to every newspaper in the country if anything happens to me. So you’d better pay up, ‘cause if you don’t, Donahue sure as hell will…I don’t care if they cut your budget…I can get custody of the boys…That bitch is schizo, there’s not a judge in the country that would take her side over mine…I want my fucking money, Owens!”

I covered my ears with a pillow and tried to make myself sleep.


	6. Zoomer

**Max Mayfield**

Lucas and I broke up for a while after Christmas, but other than that things were looking up. My new friends were really cool, especially Eleven and Will. When Eleven wasn’t hanging out with Mike and Will wasn’t playing D&D with the boys, they’d hang out at the Byers’ or the cabin. El was eager to flip through the magazines I brought, and hear my stories about California, and Will was surprisingly up for it, too. I knew what Billy would have said about that, but he mostly stayed out of my way since that night at the Byers,’ except when Neil got on his case about me.

After Lucas and I got back together, and I made him nag Mike on my behalf, Eleven and I were finally invited to play D&D, although he made us sneak in through the basement door so his mom didn’t know he had girls (especially El) over. We both got characters. El was the mage, of course, and Mike decided that I would be the thief, since that was the closest thing there was in the rule-book to a ‘zoomer.’ There were a lot more rules to D&D than I had expected, and Mike had clearly put a lot of effort into designing the game. When the game finally ended, I looked down at my watch and realized that it was after curfew.

“Shit, I’ve got to get going.”

I skated home as fast as possible, but Neil was waiting for me in the living room.

“You’re late, Maxine.”

“I’m sorry, I just lost track of time.”

“You were out with that Byers boy again.”

“What?”

“You think I don’t hear what people say about you?”

“What do they say about me?”

“That you’re always hanging around a pack of four boys. One of them’s the Byers boy that tried to run away last year because his mother’s a nutcase, and another’s a…”

I stopped him before he could finish the sentence. “Yeah, I hang out with them, but it’s not like we’re doing anything we’re not supposed to. We just go to the arcade and play video games.”

For my troubles, I got a smack across the face.

“I will not be interrupted, Maxine. And I will not have you besmirching my reputation by comporting yourself in an unladylike way in public. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Good. Now, for being out past curfew, you’re grounded for a month.”

“A month? I was only a few minutes late.”

Neil smacked me again, harder this time.

“ _Do_ not disre _spect_ me.” I could tell I was getting close to a real blow-up, so I gave in.

“I’m sorry, sir.” The words felt bitter on my tongue, like the taste after you throw up, but my pride wasn’t worth making Neil any madder. When he got mad, really mad, he was scary.

“Good, now, bring me that skateboard of yours.”

I snuck out the first chance I got and went over to Lucas’ to vent.

“….I mean, he thinks I’m having sex with Will or something, which is totally ridiculous!”

“I know, it’s crazy.”

“Like, if he’s so plugged into the Hawkins rumor network, how does he not know Will’s gay?”

“Who told you Will’s gay?”

“I used to go skateboarding in Hillcrest. I know gay when I see it.”

Lucas was suddenly very serious. “Max, this isn’t San Diego. You can’t just go around talking about shit like that.”

“Ok, I’m not like going to announce it to the whole school or anything.”

“Even within the party. He’s super sensitive about it.”

“He hasn’t come out to you guys yet?”

“Come out?”

“When a gay person tells you they’re gay, it’s called coming out of the closet.”

“Yeah, he hasn’t done that.”

“So, what? Your plan is to just never say anything?”

“You have a better plan?”

“How, about this: ‘Hey, Will, I know being gay in this town really sucks and I just wanted you to know that I’m here to support you.”

“How am I supposed to support him? Should I just repeal the law against being gay?”

“I think they already repealed that.”

Lucas was on too much of a roll to listen to me. “Should I give him my Wrist-Rocket so that if Billy or Tommy H. decides that killing a queer will get some girl to fuck them…”

“That might not be a bad idea, actually.”

“Oh, I know, we can get El to use her powers to erase the memory of his dad calling him a faggot.

“Ok, you’ve made your point. But it will help if you let him know _you_ don’t think he’s a freak or something.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why? You don’t think he’s a freak, do you?”

“He has a crush on Mike. So if we talk about him being gay, we have to talk about _that,_ and it’ll make things weird.”

I rolled my eyes. “My mom never told me boys would be so high maintenance.”


	7. Dissection

**Will Byers**

We must have done something to make Mr. Clarke mad because he split us all up for the dissection project. I got paired with Jason Ellis, the school’s resident perfectionist. Straight A’s, captain of the tennis team, always perfectly groomed and polite to adults. He was a lot nicer than I’m making him sound, and kind of cute too, to the point that I found myself fantasizing about him rather than Mike, which was a welcome relief. Jonathan had assured me that it was a normal part of puberty, but I still felt guilty imagining another boy doing things I knew he wouldn’t be willing to do in real life. I felt less guilty thinking about Jason, who I didn’t know very well, than about Mike, who’d been my best friend since kindergarten.

He invited me over to his house in Loch Nora to finish writing up the lab report. I brought over the drawings I’d made during the dissection for us to annotate.

“Wow, these are really good!” Jason exclaimed.

“Uhh…thanks. I like to draw.”

“Really? I thought you were in A.V. club.

“Yeah, but Dustin’s the one who’s really good with technology.”

“I was never really into that sort of thing, but my cousin’s got one of those personal computers.”

“Neat!”

“He says the games aren’t as good as an Atari, but he uses it to write all his papers for college.”

We got back to the project, and before we knew it, we’d finished and it was time for me to go home.

“See you in school tomorrow.”

“Yeah, hey, I’m having a birthday party next Friday. You think you guys would want to come?”

“You guys?”

“Yeah, uh you and Dustin and, is it Lucas?”

“Yeah, and Mike. I’ll see if they’re free.”

Truth be told, I suspected that Mike would rather spend Friday night with Eleven, but that would leave Dustin, Lucas, and I with nothing better to do than go to Jason’s party.

To my surprise, Max was the most enthusiastic of the party.

“We should totally go. It’ll expand our horizons.”

“Huh?” Dustin asked.

“Meet new people.”

“Friends of Jason’s?” Mike was skeptical. “He’s a total mouth breather.”

“He’s nicer than you’d think.”

“He’s such a teacher’s pet.”

“What, because he gets good grades and dresses preppy? You guys are so judgmental.”

“I’m not being judgmental! Guys like that…”

I found myself with a surprising urge to defend Jason. “I mean, Jason’s never been mean to us. And I heard him tell Freddie Richmond to stop calling me Zombie Boy.”

“See,” Max was vindicated, “and besides, he lives in Loch Nora, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, his parents are rich, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Which means they’ll have…”

Dustin finished the sentence for her “Good snacks.” 

“Ok, we’ll go to this stupid party and eat good snacks while everyone makes fun of us.”

As it turned out, Jason’s mom is a doctor, so the snacks were pretty crummy, but no one made fun of us and we actually had a good time with Jason and his friends. Even Mike loosened up after a little while.

Mom still insisted on having Jonathan pick me up, but he parked a few blocks down and waited for us. The guys were going to spend the night at my place.

“So how was the party?”

“It was great,” I responded.

“Snacks sucked, though” Dustin interjected.

Jonathan laughed and turned to face front. I looked up at him from the passenger seat.

_So you and Jason, huh?_

_Yeah, he’s really cool._

_He seems nice._

_You met him?_

_In your memories. You should invite him over._

_I don’t know._ In the back of my mind, I was worried about showing Jason my house. It was a lot less nice than his.

_He’s not going to be weird about the house. It’ll be a good chance to see if he likes you back._

_What if he doesn’t?_

_Then he’s just a new friend._

_What if he thinks I’m a freak?_

_He doesn’t. He invited you to his party, didn’t he?_

_He invited all the guys._

_Will, I’m sure he didn’t just invite you so he could hang out with Dustin._

_Ok, I’ll check on him in school Monday._


	8. I'll Be Watching You

**Jason Ellis**

Monday morning, I noticed Will looking at me in math class.

 _Maybe he likes me back,_ I thought to myself.

He looked away and wiped his nose.

_Oh, no. He just had to sneeze. You were stupid for thinking he’d like you. Just because Troy thinks he’s a fag doesn’t mean he is one. You’re a stupid fag, stupid, stupid, stupid…_

By lunch time, I was in a thoroughly bad mood, but Will came up to me on the way into the cafeteria.

“Hey, so I have an Atari, if you wanted to, you know, come over after school.”

“Umm…I’d have to ask my parents, but that sounds cool.”

“Cool.” Will smiled. God, his smile was so cute.

I sat down with Freddie and Phil.

“What the fuck was that about?” Freddie asked.

“Oh, uh, Will wanted to hang out after school.” I didn’t really want it to turn into a group thing, but it turned out that I didn’t have anything to worry about.

“And you’re going to?”

“Yeah, he has an Atari.”

“But it’s _Zombie Boy.”_

I rolled my eyes. “Just because he got lost in the woods once doesn’t mean he’s a freak.”

“Yeah, but his mom went batshit crazy.”

“My dad said it wasn’t a long trip.”

Freddie and Phil both snickered.

“Geez, will you guys knock it off.”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize he was your boyfriend now.”

A knot twisted in my stomach.

“He’s not my boyfriend, I just think you’re being a jerk.”

Freddie rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

I really needed new friends. Maybe Will’s friends would be friends with me. But they were nerds, and I heard how adults talked about them. ‘Less athletic types.’ Would my parents be disappointed in me if I started hanging out with them?

I broached the subject at dinner that night. Dad was in surgery, so it was just me, Mom, and my older sister Holly.

“Do you remember Will from the science project?”

“Yes.”

“He’s got an Atari, and I thought maybe I could go over and play with it after school some time.

“Hmmm…”

Holly crinkled her nose. “Isn’t that Jonathan Byers’ little brother.”

“Yeah…”

“He’s a _freak.”_

“Holly…” Mom remonstrated.

“What, it’s true. Everyone says it.”

“Just because everyone says something doesn’t make it true.”

“His mom’s a total schizo.”

“Holly, that’s not a nice thing to call someone.”

“When he disappeared last year, she was yelling at his psycho brother in the street about hearing voices.”

“She was probably under a lot of stress, dear. You don’t understand how scary losing a child can be.”

“Besides, how dumb does he have to be to get lost in the woods?”

I saw an opportunity to play on Mom’s sense of morality.”

“Well, if his family’s so messed up, then shouldn’t I try to be friends with him? To, you know, make him feel better.”

“Alright, you can go to his house. But promise you’ll be back by the time I get home, and if anything makes you feel weird or uncomfortable, you’ll tell me, ok.”

“Ok, mom.”

Will’s house was actually nice, smaller than ours, but it looked like it had been repainted recently. He showed me into his room and we started playing. He kept stealing glances at me while we were playing _Star Raiders._

_Maybe he really does like me. Maybe someday we could like kiss and stuff. His lips are so cute when he smiles like that._

Will turned away, looking almost embarrassed. _Or maybe he can tell I’m looking at him and it’s weird. Oh, god, what if he tells his friends? What if he tells MY friends?_

I forced myself to concentrate on the game until we got board with playing it.

“I’ve got a tape my brother made me. Do you want to listen?”

“Sure.”

“It’s got a lot of cool songs on it, but this one’s my favorite.”

He turned on the stereo, and guitar music flooded the room.

_“Darling you’ve got to let me know…”_

It was a song I’d never heard before, and definitely not the type of music I usually listened to, but Will’s obvious love for it was infectious. Before long, we were dancing around the room, forgetting for a moment that two boys weren’t supposed to dance with each other.

A few songs later, I noticed that the sun was starting to go down.

“Oh, I’d better get back. I told my mom I’d be home by dark.”

“Ok, I had a really good time.”

“Thanks, me too.”

Before I could react, he leaned in and kissed me. Just a quick peck on the cheek, but it was enough to have me floating on air the whole way home.

_He likes me! Will Byers really likes me!_


	9. Love, In Itself

**Jonathan Byers**

As soon as I got home, I could tell that Will’s date-that-wasn’t-a-date with Jason had gone well. When I went inside his head, he was replaying a very chaste kiss on a loop. I could tell it was a memory and not a fantasy, which meant that Jason returned his affections, and they were now both aware of it. At some point, I was going to have to have a Serious Talk with him, but for that night, I just let him be happy.

Jason came over several times within the next couple of weeks. I was pretty sure that the kissing was gradually getting less chaste, but I’d stopped checking on Will. I figured that whatever he and Jason were getting up to should be private between the two of them.

Whatever they were getting up to, it did wonders for Will’s self-confidence. It seemed like Jason was starting to ingratiate himself into the friend group, although they weren’t hanging out as much since Mike and Lucas wanted to hang out with their respective girlfriends and Will cherished his alone time with Jason. Dustin was probably starting to feel left out, once I thought about it. I decided they needed something the group could all do together.

I found the answer on one of my movie dates with Nancy. There was a concert flyer tacked up to the theater.

“Hey, Nancy, do you think Mike would like Depeche Mode?”

“Why?”

_I thought it might be a good first concert for Will. They have a lot of gay fans._

_Does this involve Jason Ellis by any chance?_

_What has Mike told you about Jason?_

_He was annoyed that Will was bringing some random kid into the ‘party,’ but he seems to be getting over it. I don’t know if he suspects anything else._

_Did you suspect something?_

_Not until you started telepathically interrogating me._

_Sorry._

_No worries, just the price I pay for dating a mind reader._

_Can you sound out your parents? We need at least one other kid._

_I think they’ll be okay with it as long as I’m chaperoning. I dunno about Mike, though. All he wants to do lately is make out with Eleven._

_The concert’s in Carbondale._

_What’s your point?_

_We could take her and it wouldn’t be a problem._

_Except for Jason._

_The plan was to introduce her gradually, we can just tell him he’s Hopper’s daughter who goes to another school._

_OK, if you talk to Hopper, I’ll talk to Mike._

It turned out that Hopper needed some convincing.

“Those two are way too attached to each other. I’d really rather you take Mike so I can have some time without him hanging around like…I don’t even know what he hangs around like.”

“It’s going to be a group thing. It’ll be a chance for them to get used to being around each other without making out constantly.”

“Did you read my mind?”

“Maybe,” I admitted.

“You know, you’d make a good detective.”

“I think they were going for more of a spy.”

“Yeah. Alright, she can go, but keep her away from anything the chief of police’s daughter shouldn’t do.”

With Hopper’s assent secured, the only obstacle was Jason’s parents.

“They want to meet you before you take Jason somewhere,” Will explained.

“Do they, uh, suspect anything?”

“I think they’re just worried you’re going to give us drugs or something.”

“I was planning that for sometime when Jane wasn’t there.”

“Ha. She just wants to check you out.” Will’s phrasing brought to mind an extremely disturbing memory of one of Mrs. Wheeler’s interactions with Billy Hargrove that she had inadvertently provided me during a family dinner, and I suppressed a smirk.

“Ok, should I just call her?”

“I think she wants to meet you in person. I’ll give you the address.”

I felt profoundly out of place driving my rusting LTD through Loch Nora to find the Ellis’s, and it wasn’t exactly like I was going to win Mr. Congeniality any time soon. Mrs. Ellis opened the door.

“Hi, I’m Jonathan, Will’s brother.” I extended my hand awkwardly.

“I’m Dr. Ellis, Jason’s mom. He’s told us a lot about Will.”

_He’s polite, at least. I’m not sure how comfortably I’d feel about Jason in that car, though._

“So, um, there’s a concert in Rock Island on the twenty-third, I thought it might be a good first concert for the kids. You know, um, nothing too wild or anything.”

_I hope it isn’t one of those metal bands Philip Novak was trying to get Jason to listen to. Some of those lyrics are so misogynistic…_

“It’s, um, Depeche Mode. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them.”

_Is that one of the bands Jason was talking about Will listening to?_

“I can’t say that I am.”

“Oh, well, a lot of the younger kids like them. They’re a little less heavy than some of the stuff on MTV. My friend Nancy was going to drive, and we were going to have little a slumber party for the kids after, since it will probably be late when we get back.”

_Who is this Nancy person?_

“Her brother’s in Will and Jason’s class, Michael Wheeler?”

“Oh, yes, we know the Wheelers.”

_If they’re ok with it, it should be fine._

“Well, I’ll have to talk to my husband, but I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t go.”


	10. Message in a Bottle

**Mike Wheeler**

The concert was actually pretty fun It wasn’t the band I would have picked, but it was my first real concert, and only my second time doing anything in public with El. After the last encore, we crammed into the back seat of the station wagon. I ended up in the jump seat, with El craning her neck back to talk to me. Will and Jason were sitting next to her.

In the flashes of light from the highway lights, I noticed Jason’s hand resting on Will’s thigh. Will hesitantly moved his hand to cover it.

_So that’s why he wanted Jason to be in the party. I shouldn’t have been such a jerk about it. Should I talk to him? But that would mean talking about him being gay…_

I knew I wasn’t in the right mental state to figure this out. I was that mixture of tired and amped up you get when you’re doing something fun way past your bedtime. And I may have taken a hit off a joint someone was passing around when El and Nancy weren’t looking.

As we crossed into Illinois, the adrenaline started to fade and the conversation grew quieter. The next thing I knew, Nancy was shaking me awake.

“Did I fall asleep.”

“You all did. It’s like five a.m.”

I stepped out into the bracingly cold air and looked back into the station wagon. Will and Jason were curled up together on the back seat.

“Don’t let him know you saw him,” Nancy whispered.

I turned away as Jonathan woke Will up. Even though it was nearly morning, he insisted that we change into our pajamas and try to get some sleep until Dr. Ellis came to pick Jason up. I think he had given her the impression that the concert would end way earlier than it actually did.

After Jason and his mom left, Nancy drove me home. Once I was trapped in the car with her, and groggy to boot, she took the opportunity to interrogate me.

“So how long have you known about Will?”

“And Jason?”

“In general.”

“I don’t know. I mean I heard people call him queer when we were kids, I thought it just meant he was girly. And then I called a tie Mom wanted me to wear to church queer and she got really mad, so I realized it was something worse than that. I guess I figured out what it really meant from watching the news, and I realized…the way he looked at me when he didn’t think anyone else was looking.”

“But you never talked to him?”

“I was afraid that if I told him I didn’t like him the same way he liked me, he wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore. And somewhere along the way, it’s like we made a silent agreement never to say anything out loud.”

“You don’t have to say it out loud.”

“Huh?”

“Will’s psychic, remember? You just have to think about it when he’s listening in.”

We’d gotten into the habit of talking in our heads during boring classes. There was no way the teacher would ever catch us. The next day in math, I started replaying the memory of the car ride in my head and thinking as hard as I could:

_I’m happy for you, I’m happy for you, I’m happy for you, I’m happy for you, I’m happy for you, I’m happy for you._

_Really?_ Will’s voice came into my head, small and nervous. Had he been worried about me rejecting him the same as I had been worried about him?

_Kind of._

_I won’t, I promise._


	11. So Much Heat for the Ones We Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purposes of this fanfic, Arthur is Joyce's maiden name.

**Joyce Arthur**

With the new mall opening up, it seemed like Melvald’s was getting less and less business. It got to the point that Donald sent me home early one Saturday in April. I knew that Jonathan was working, and I figured that Will would be at Mike’s.

I rolled down the window and lit a cigarette as I tried to figure out what we were going to do. We were getting a small stipend from the government, which would help if Donald cut my hours, but it wouldn’t be enough if I got fired completely.

I got home and opened a beer while I tried to figure out what I was going to do next. At first, I thought I was alone, but then I heard a noise coming from Will’s room.

“Will, is that you?”

There was a loud thud. Worried that it could be god only knows what, I ran to Will’s room and opened the door.

“No, Mom, I’m not…” Will frantically pulled the sheets up to cover himself. There were two sets of clothes strewn around the floor. One was Will’s, and the other probably belonged to Jason. “…dressed.”

“Jason’s under the bed, isn’t he?”

“Uh, yeah.” Will admitted sheepishly.

“Sorry, I though there was an…intruder. Why don’t you boys go ahead and get dressed.”

A minute later, Jason ran through the living room.

“I’vegottagobyeMrsWheeler.”

Before I could say anything, he was out the door and running home as fast as his bike would carry him. Will emerged from the bedroom, looking disheveled and very nervous. He looked directly at me.

“Are you in my head?”

“You’re not mad?” He sounded surprised.

“No, sweetie. I mean, I would have preferred if you waited until you were a little older, but there’s no point crying over spilled milk.”

“I just thought…”

“Oh, no, no, no. I would never love you any less because you’re gay. Okay, sweetie?”

“Okay.” He sniffled just a little bit, and I hugged him tighter. “You’re not going to tell Jason’s mom are you?”

“No, but I’m going to have Jonathan talk to you about, you know, boy stuff.”

I waited for Jonathan to come in, which was unusual.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just, I kind of walked in on Will and Jason.”

“You didn’t knock?”

“I was alone, I heard a noise, I thought it was…”

“The monster?”

“Yeah.”

“Jonathan, why didn’t he think he could tell me?”

“He’s a lot like you. He gets, worked up over little things. Like if he has a fight with his friends or gets a bad grade on a test he’ll spin up these scenarios in his head about how terribly everything was going to turn out. And he’s had years to get worked up over this.”

“He gets worked up like me?”

“It wasn’t anything you did.”

“How come I never knew this?”

Jonathan shrugged. “He’s good at hiding things. I only know because I can see into his head.”

“Can you help him?”

“I try when he does it around me. But I need a direct line of sight to get in his head.”

“Anything else I should know about?”

“He still has, what’d Hopper call them?”

“Flashbacks.”

“Not like the now memories, or at least he doesn’t think they’re like the now memories. Nancy thinks we should all see a real psychologist, but I don’t think Owens would like it.”

“I need to talk to him anyway.”


	12. I Follow Where My Mind Goes

**Will Byers**

After talking to mom, I decided it was time to open up to the Party about Jason, and to Jason about the Party. I’d gotten everybody to go to one of his tennis matches, and brought it up while he was on the court.

“So, I’m thinking about telling Jason about…” I pointed to my wrist.

“That’d mean telling him about Jane,” Lucas responded, looking around to make sure no one was listening in. “And last fall.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure you can trust him?”

“Absolutely.”

“Are you sure, or are you just in love with him?” Mike asked.

“I’m sure because I’m in love with him, and he loves me back. He would never do anything to hurt me.”

“What if you break up, like, for real break up?”

“What would happen if you broke up with Max, or if you broke up with Jane? Would you go running to the papers to rat her out?”

“What? No! I would never…”

“Neither would Jason.”

Max came to my defense. “Um, guys. Will can read minds, I’m pretty sure if he trusts Jason, Jason’s trustworthy.”

“OK, but we need to run it by Hopper first. I’m on thin ice with him as it is.”

“Why is that?”

“Um, because _someone_ gave Jane her mom’s old Cosmos and then she asked Hopper what oral sex meant.”

Max burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny! He was about to forbid me from seeing her.”

“Ok, first of all, that is hilarious, and second, you two need to get over your obsession with keeping El chaste or whatever.”

“It’s not like that!”

Trying to prevent an argument, Lucas changed the subject.

“Ok, what’s Jason thinking about now?”

“He’s concentrating on the game. His parents are here and he wants them to be proud of him.”

“Do his parents know about you guys.”

“They suspect there’s something going on, but they don’t think we understand what we’re feeling yet.”

“So he hasn’t told him anything?”

“No.”

“If he was going to tell someone without meaning to hurt you,” Dustin pointed out, “it would be his parents.”

“Ok, we’ll talk to Hopper.”

“I think we should talk to Steve, too.”

“Steve Harrington?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“He’s an expert on romance. Taught me everything I know.”

“You’re the only one here who’s still single.”

“Well, Um, I, uh.”

I felt a little sorry for Dustin.

“It can’t hurt to talk to Steve. Besides, it’s free ice cream.”

Steve sat down in a booth across from us. “Okay, spill Byers.”

 _S_ o _there’s this guy, Jason. And we’ve kind of been, I don’t know how to explain it…_ I remembered the first time Jason and I kissed.

_Woah, plot twist._

_Yeah, so anyway, I thought it’d be cool if I could share thoughts with him. But if I tell him, it means…_

_…Telling him everything else._

_So I wanted to get your advice before we go to Hopper._

_You want my advice? You realize that I didn’t get into college and now I work at a job that requires me to wear a sailor suit and hang out with eighth-graders?_

_Yeah, but Dustin thought it would be a good idea and I didn’t want to disappoint him._

_Why don’t I have friends like you?_

_Because you hung out with Tommy H. and Carole all through high school._

_Point taken. Ok, so just to get things straight, you’re telling me that you’re gay, the complications of which I think are fairly obvious, and that despite these complications you’ve managed to get a boyfriend, and I’m assuming lose your virginity._

_Is that part important?_

_No, but I’m a little impressed you did it younger than me._

_Thanks?_

_Anyway, so you’re telling me you want to explain to said boyfriend that you have telepathic powers so that you can have conversations inside each other’s heads, like you’re doing with me right now._

_Exactly._

_But you don’t think the chief of police will let you, because that would require telling said boyfriend about the portal to another dimension that his daughter accidentally opened, causing you to be kidnapped by a monster from said dimension then possessed by a virus cloud thingy, which would threaten to blow the lid on the federal government’s mad scientist experiments on psychic children, including you, your brother who is currently dating my ex-girlfriend, and the police chief’s daughter._

_Pretty much._

_Okay, they don’t cover this in babysitting school._

_So no advice?_

_Just let me think for a moment…I think, this is going to be a lot for Jason to handle all at once. Maybe introduce it to him gradually._

_Gradually, got it._


	13. Gradually, And Then All At Once

**Jason Ellis**

At first I was afraid that Will’s mom would tell my mom about us, but she didn’t say anything. Once school let out for the summer, I was free to come and go to Will’s house and stay as long as I wanted, although I always told my mom that ‘the guys’ were hanging out there. We would explore in the woods around his house; he showed me the fort he’d built with his brother when they were little kids, and the places he used to play with Mike and Lucas.

One day we explored a bit further afield, down to where the old lab was. The fence was starting to rust.

“Did you ever sneak in there?” I asked.

“No, but we used to go in with my dad sometimes.”

“Did he work there?”

“Sort of.”

“What was it like?”

“It was weird. They used to do experiments with me and Jonathan.”

“What kind of experiments?”

“You know Uri Geller?”

“So you can like bend spoons and stuff?”

“I can’t, but I know someone who can do that and way more. They had me and Jonathan do stuff with cards. Like someone would look at the card and we’d have to guess what it was from their minds.”

“So you’re like, psychic?”

 _Yeah._ His voice echoed inside my head, but his lips weren’t moving.

_Wow, this is so cool._

_I know. We can talk like this around people and no one will know. But you have to keep it a secret._

_Why?_

_The lab wasn’t supposed to be doing that kind of experiments. They made my mom sign a bunch of papers that we’d never tell anyone about it._

_So that stuff about the chemical leak?_

_Cover-up._

_You know Troy’s dad worked at the lab._

_Yeah._ I had a fleeting vision of Mr. Walsh in a lab coat, from Will’s memory. There was something sinister about his facial expression, and Will quickly turned away, breaking the connection between his brain and mine.

“He got a new job at another Department of Energy lab,” Will continued out loud, “in Montauk, New York. It’s 900 miles away.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah.”

Will reestablished the connection. I could feel everything he felt, the sun warming his cheek, a breeze blowing through his hair, his mind peacefully contented. I assumed he could feel what I was feeling too.

And then there was something else. A sudden sensation like the drop on a roller coaster, and then a shadow over everything. I could tell he felt it too, because he put his hand to his neck.

“What is that?” I asked.

“We’d better go.” Will turned his bike around and started pedaling back towards home.

“Okay, this is starting to freak me out. Can you please tell me what that was?”

“One of the experiments went wrong, and it released something into the woods. We thought we defeated it last Halloween, but that was definitely it.”

“Who’s we?”

“Hopper and Eleven.”

“Who’s eleven.”

“Jane.”

“His daughter?”

“Adopted. She used to live at the lab. That’s why she’s…”

“Odd?”

“They didn’t let her go to school or play with other kids. And she’s powerful, way more powerful than me. During one of the experiments she opened a gate.”

“A gate?”

“To another dimension.” If I’d said that to anyone else, they would have said it was crazy, but after what Will had already showed me, I believed him totally. “A bad dimension.”

“So what we felt?”

“It wants to take over our world.”

We got to the Byers’ house, and Will called out.

“Mom? Jonathan? They must be at work.” He picked up the phone and dialed. “Hello, Mr. Melvald? It’s Will Byers. Can you put my mom on?”


	14. A Party Member Requires Assistance

**Chief Jim Hopper**

Flo was waiting for me when I got into the station.

“Joyce Arthur.”

“I’ll take it in my office.”

I locked the door behind me and picked up the receiver.

“Is this about Lonnie?”

“What?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, Hopper.”

“Alright, he showed up in the courthouse two weeks ago and filed for custody of the boys.”

“This is really not a good time, Hopper.”

“I told Kline it was going to be enforced over my dead body.”

“Hopper, it’s back.”

“What’s back?”

“The thing. Will felt it when he was out in the woods with Jason.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a flashback?”

“He showed me, Hop. It was different from a flashback. It wasn’t a memory, it was like it was pulling it toward him. And Jason felt it, too.”

“Jason’s the boyfriend?”

“Yes. They were riding their bikes near the old lab. Will wanted to show him…”

“Gradually.” I had been reluctant to let him, but one of those damn kids had taught Jane how to make puppy-dog eyes, and I wasn’t nearly prepared. As if dealing with my own hormone-addled teenager wasn’t enough.

“Have you called Owens?”

“No, I just got home.”

“Ok, call him as soon as I hang up. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

When I got to the Byers’ house, Jane and all her friends except Henderson were waiting in the living room, along with Steve Harrington, wielding a baseball bat studded with nails, a slightly-too-neat-for-his-age boy I assumed was Jason, and Nancy Wheeler, who was loading a Smith and Wesson.

“Where the hell’d you get that thing?”

“Lonnie’s glove box, the day of Will’s funeral.”

“Who’s Lonnie?” Maxine, of the _Cosmopolitans,_ asked.

“Mouthbreather.”

“Our dad,” Jonathan explained.

“We can deal with him later. What’d Owens say?”

“He’ll fly out from D.C., but it will be a couple of days.”

“Ok, how much does this kid know?” I pointed to Jason. “If we’re going to have Owens and his pals crawling all over the place, I don’t want to leak any more classified information than we have to.”

“He needs to know,” Will insisted, a surprising note of determination in his voice. He normally wasn’t the most assertive kid. “It would have felt him when it interacted with me. He’s in as much danger as we are.”

“Ok, fine, you want to tell him, you tell him _everything._ I don’t want to have to stop in the middle of running from some monster to explain things. _”_

“I’ll show him.” Will sat down cross-legged in the middle of the living room, and motioned for Jason to sit across from him. As he closed his eyes, every light in the house turned on about 10 times brighter than they should have. A trickle of blood ran down Will’s lip, and suddenly the thoughts he meant to share with Jason were in my head too.

He was four and his dad was holding his hand down on the stove while Jonathan screamed ineffectually in the background.

He was five and Brenner was looking down at him with a twisted smile.

He was eight and Mike Wheeler was beating up another kid for calling his drawing queer.

He was nine and Jonathan was trying to teach him how to hammer, but he couldn’t see the nails through his tears.

He was ten and starting to learn what _queer_ really means

He was eleven and knew he shouldn’t be looking at Mike like that.

He was twelve and running from a monster through a twisted shadow of Hawkins.

He was thirteen and the monster was in him now.

The lights dimmed, and Will slumped onto the floor, exhausted. I became conscious of Jason’s sobbing. Max ran out of the room, and a few seconds later I could hear the sound of her vomiting from the bathroom.

Jonathan and Jane both seemed unaffected. They’d probably seen it all before. Jonathan scooped Will up and carried him to the bedroom and Jane leaned over Jason. She was trying to be comforting, but she didn’t have a lot of practice, so I stepped in.

“Come on, kid. I’ll drive you home.”


	15. Back to Hawkins

**Dr. Sam Owens**

Jim Hopper met me at the airport.

“You came alone?" 

“We’re staging forces at Grissom, but we want to minimize visibility until we know what we’re up against. The Soviets have a rival program, and we’ve been picking up radio traffic from inside that mall.”

“Wait, there’s a Soviet spy ring operating inside the mall and you guys didn’t bother to notify the local police?”

“They don’t know we’re listening, so we’re waiting to move in until they tip us off as to what exactly they’re doing. So, how’s the kid?”

“She’s doing good. She’s been going out in public some and she’s really started interacting more with the other kids…wish she’d spend a little less time with the Wheeler kid, though.”

“I meant Byers.”

“Oh, yeah, uh, not great. The PTSD symptoms are getting worse.”

“That could just be in his head.”

“Yeah, his brother says the virus isn’t in him, there’s just some sort of residual connection.”

“We suspect the virus has found a new host or hosts. It could have replicated enough by now that the connection’s stronger.”

“A new host, like, another person?”

“Or an animal. It could be in the soil.”

“How do we stop it if it’s in the soil?”

“Worst case scenario, we cordon off the area and do a controlled burn to correct a ‘chemical leak.’ What we’re really worried about is another human infection. Will was able to interact with others and behave superficially normally for the first few days he was infected. If an infected host is able to travel outside of Hawkins and transmit the virus, we could be looking at…”

“….A zombie apocalypse.”

“Something like that.”

“So, before we get to the Byers, I should let you know about a complication. Will formed a relationship with another boy.”

“That wasn’t wholly unexpected.”

“He was with the kid when he felt it and they were, communicating I guess you’d say.”

“How much does the kid know.”

“Everything, Will let him into his memories.”

“I really wish you’d run that by me first.”

“Look, the kid’s had a tough life and it’s not going to get easier any time soon. If it makes things a little easier for him to have that emotional support, I’m not gonna stop it just to help your cover-up. By the way, what’s the deal between you guys and Lonnie Byers?”

“I told them giving him custody wouldn’t be in the kids’ best interest, but hard to justify putting the best interest of a couple of teenagers in Indiana over national security.”

“Ok, when you get back I want you to ask them what they think the national security implications will be if a man like Lonnie Byers has control over two psychic teenagers. And then I want you to tell them that if anything happens to Joyce or any of the kids, every agreement I signed is null and void.”

“Duly noted.”

Will and Jonathan were both at the house when we got in, as was Joyce. I knew the store where she worked had cut her hours – it seems the new mall was cutting into their business.

After a brief introduction, I made my pitch.

“We need someone with your abilities to keep an eye out for anyone who seems infected. We’d be willing to pay the standard salary for a case officer, and you would be officially sworn in…”

Joyce was predictably unenthusiastic. “Absolutely not! You are not putting my boys in any more danger…”

“It wouldn’t be any more danger than they’re already in,”

“You mean the danger from _your_ e—e-experiments.”

“I admit that we bear some responsibility here.”

“ _Some?”_

Unexpectedly, Jonathan took my side. “Mom, we could use the money, especially if Melvald’s goes out of business.”

“Jonathan, it is not your responsibility.”

“It’s my responsibility.” Will stepped forward. “I let the shadow monster in. I let it…I let it kill Bob. I have to help stop it.” 


	16. Cerebro

**Dustin Henderson**

No one wrote to me while I was at camp. I was starting to worry that they’d forgotten about me. I knew it was silly, but I’d never been away from home that long. My fears were assuaged as soon as we pulled into the driveway. The whole Party was waiting for me, even Eleven, and they looked almost relieved to see me.

“How was camp?” Lucas asked.

“It was great! I got a girlfriend, and I built a radio that I’m going to set up to call her in Salt Lake City.”

“Cool, let’s set it up now.”

Mom intervened. “Oh, Dustin needs to unpack before he can go out and play.”

“We’ll help.”

The unpacking went quickly, despite Mom’s supervision, and pretty soon we were off to set up Cerebro, and I was telling everyone about Susie, but the didn’t seem to be listening.

“…You guys don’t seem as excited as I thought you would be.”

“We’re happy for you,” Mike assured me, “but some things have happened while you were gone.”

“What?”

Max looked around. “There’s no one around for miles, I think we’re safe.”

“Just have Will tell me,” I suggested. He could use his mental powers and tell me without any eavesdroppers figuring it out.

“I’m trying to conserve my energy,” Will mumbled. I noticed he looked tired and had bags under his eyes.

“The monster’s back,” Jason explained.

“The mindflayer? Wait, how do you know about it?”

“Will was explaining about his powers to me, and we both felt it.”

“Like it was calling to you?”

“Yeah, and I’ve felt it several times since then – just now actually.”

“Which direction?”

“That way,” Will pointed down the hill, “but it’s come from other directions before.”

“The CIA thinks it’s found a host in an animal or something,” Mike explained, “but they think it’s looking for a new human host. Jonathan and Will are scanning everyone they come across, and the CIA thinks the Russians have a spy in the mall somewhere, so Steve’s keeping an eye on things there.”

“How do they know it’s the mall?”

“They intercepted some sort of radio transmission.”

“Hey, Cerebro could probably pick up their transmissions. That might help us pinpoint the exact location.”

“You think we could find it?”

“Yeah, just let me call Susie first. I promised I would as soon as I got home.”

I tried calling Susie all afternoon, but she didn’t pick up, and I was worried Cerebro wouldn’t actually reach Salt Lake City. I had her phone number as a backup, but her parents didn’t want her to have a boyfriend (they’re Mormons, which are like super-religious white people who don’t believe in dating, it’s all a bit Shakesperean really) so I doubted we’d really be able to talk much.

I did pick up the Russians, though, and there was a piece of music in the background that I thought might be from one of the rides in the mall. I decided I was going to take the tape to Steve the next morning to see if he could do anything with it.


	17. Most of All You’ve Got to Hide it From the Kids

**Mike Wheeler**

While Dustin tried to help Steve track down the Russians, Will scoped out the pool on our guest pass. It was a great place for what he was doing, since the pool got really crowded in summer, and Mom was glad to have me watch Holly while she suntanned with the other moms.

I was trying to teach Holly to kick in the water when Will tapped me on the shoulder.

“It’s Billy.”

“Hargrove?”

“Yeah, he’s infected. It hasn’t taken over totally yet.”

“You think we should try to follow him?”

“At a safe distance. Wait, your mom just went off in the same direction as him. We can act like we’re going to ask her for money for the pop machine.”

We got out of the pool and followed Mom toward the bathrooms. Instead of going to the bathroom, however, she followed Billy into a storage room.

 _Wait,_ I thought, _Mom doesn’t know Billy. Oh, shit, what if she’s infected too._

We hid behind a stack of supplies and listened in on the conversation.

“I understand if you’re angry with me…” _Maybe Mom did know Billy somehow, but why would he be angry at her?_ “I just…I wanted to explain why I didn’t come last night.” _Oh, God no._ “It’s not you, it’s just, I have a family.” _There’s not other explanation for that._ “And I can’t do anything that would hurt them.” _Bull-fucking-shit! Did she think I was supposed to feel good about her cheating on Dad with a sixteen-year-old? He’s Nancy’s age!_ “You can understand that, right? Billy, Billy, please will you talk to me?” _Oh, she’s begging him now?_

Billy turned around. “Stay away from me, Karen.” _Serves the bitch right._

 _We need to tell Max._ Will’s voice echoed inside my head. _I’m sorry about all this._

_Oh, right. We still have the monster to deal with._

_If we can get Billy in the sauna,_

“Boys?” I looked up to see Mom, with a surprised look on her face. “What are you two doing back here?”

“I was just about to ask you the same question, _Karen_.” I had meant for that to sound contemptuous, but my body betrayed me and it came out hoarse and childish.

“I…how much did you overhear.”

“All of it.”

“I…I…We should go home. Will, I’ll drop you off.”

“Wait, I need to show you something first.”

“I don’t think now is a good time, Will.”

“Just look into my eyes.”

Will’s nose started to bleed, and I knew he was sharing something emotional. Unlike El, who got nosebleeds almost every time she used her powers, Will and Jonathan found regular telepathy pretty easy. The nosebleeds only happened when whatever they were seeing or sharing was upsetting.

 _It should have been her,_ I thought, _She should have been the one who got taken by the Demogorgon. So what if she’d died? It’d suck to be an orphan but at least I’d have thought she was a good mother. At least everything before then wouldn’t have been ruined in retrospect._

“Ok, we’re going to go home and we’re going to call Chief Hopper.”

I sat in the front seat of the station wagon, resolutely staring straight ahead.

_You are not going to cry, you are not going to cry, you are not going to let her see you cry._

“Mike, I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about all this.”

I snapped. “No! Do not pull that shit with me. Do not fucking pretend that I would ever have any reason to trust you. Do not try…”

Holly began crying, and Will turned around in his seat to try to comfort her.

 _Shit._ I turned back around and sat in stony silence until we got home.

“I’ll go warn Max,” Will volunteered. “Mrs. Wheeler, can you call Chief Hopper?” _Mike, just sit tight. Jonathan will know how to make it better._


	18. Brothers in Arms

**Jonathan Byers**

Will came by on my lunch break to let us know about Hargrove and Mrs. Wheeler. Of course, to his mind, they had the same level of urgency. After lunch, we drove over to Mrs. Driscoll’s and discovered that both she and the chemical-eating rats in her basement were infected. I used the pay phone to call Owens while Nancy, who was still somewhat miffed that I’d agreed to work for the ‘bad guys,’ handled the editorial board. Of course, they decided that it would be funny to come up with a million busywork tasks for us, and it was getting dark by the time we managed to escape from the office.

I drove the LTD as fast as I dared toward the Wheeler household.

“So, uh, you want me to talk to Mike?”

“No, he needs to just get over himself. I don’t see why he’s so freaked out. It’s not like he walked in on them having sex.”

“I mean, he was never the type of person who would take this sort of thing well, and he didn’t see it coming like you did.”

“I guess.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s really not that big a deal.”

“Is it really not a big deal or do you just feel like it shouldn’t be when you compare your problems to Oliver Twist?”

“I thought you were going to warn me before doing that.”

“Oh, that wasn’t telepathy. Just deductive reasoning.”

“So now you’re Sherlock Holmes?”

“Just very, very British apparently.”

“I promise I’ll stop calling you that if you stop bringing it up.”

“Oh, no, those are our new nicknames for each other. Oliver Twist and Nancy Drew, fighting crime in Hawkins, Indiana.”

Nancy finally laughed a bit. “You’d better stick to espionage. I don’t think you have much of a future in TV writing.”

When we got to the Wheeler house, Mrs. Wheeler was serving pot roast in an attempt to reclaim her status as a Respectable Suburban Housewife. Steve was nursing some nasty bruises and Dr. Owens was pushing his food around on his plate, clearly annoyed at us for expanding the circle of people who knew about the shadow monster, which now included Mrs. Wheeler, Will’s science teacher, Robin Buckley, and…

“Erica?” Lucas was if anything, more upset than Dr. Owens. “What the heck are you doing here?”

“For your information, _nerd,_ I was the one who snuck through the air ducts to find the secret underground Russian base.”

“OK, is she expecting any sort of payment for this?” Owens asked.

Steve rolled his eyes, “free Scoops Ahoy.”

“For. _Life.”_

“Okay, is there anyone else we need to tell? The _Hawkins Post,_ maybe?”

Nancy snapped her fingers. “Murray Baumann.”

“I think he was being sarcastic, Nance.”

“I mean, it couldn’t hurt.”

“Murray Baumann is the last person I ever want to see again. Okay, now you said the rat was infected, and so was Mrs. Driscoll.”

“Yes, but the infection didn’t seem very advanced in Mrs. Driscoll. There’s probably still time to save her.”

“Can we take her in covertly?”

“She lives alone, and she has a reputation around town as a bit of a crank. She calls the paper with a new conspiracy theory every week.”

“That’ll make the cover-up easier. What about Billy?”

“He lives with his father and stepmother, and Max.”

“You think you could get him out of the house?”

“My stepdad’s home.”

“Could you talk to him?”

“He’s…”

I had seen enough memories of Neil Hargrove to know that asking Max to reason with him was far more than she could be expected to handle.

“A domestic abuser. Sorry, Max. If we want to get around him, we need to create a distraction.”

“What kind of distraction?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Wheeler can ask to borrow a cup of sugar or something.”

“I made brownies!”

“What?”

“I’ll offer them brownies. To, uh, welcome them to Hawkins.”

“But they’ve been here nine months,” Lucas objected.

“It doesn’t need to be believable, it just needs to keep him occupied long enough for Max to sneak in and inject Billy with a sedative, then get him out…”

“Bedroom window.”

“We get him in the back of the station wagon, drive him to the pool, and use the sauna to get the virus out of him.”

“What if the sauna doesn’t work? With Will I had to use a hot poker.”

Mr. Clarke stepped forward. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I have a blowtorch that I use for models.”

“They’re really quite detailed,” Mom interjected

“That’s what you stood me up for? To look at Scott Clarke’s toy soldiers.”

“To find out what was wrong with the magnets.”

“They’re not toys.”

“And besides, it wasn’t even a date…”

I tried to bring some order back to the conversation. “Mr. Clarke, can you get the blowtorch and bring it right back here. Mrs. Wheeler, you do whatever you need to do with the brownies, and Nancy and I will go talk to Mike while we’re waiting.”

Nancy picked the lock to Mike’s room. He was lying face down on the bed, still in his bathing suit. He’d cried himself out a few hours ago, and was now thoroughly exhausted, but stubbornly refusing to allow himself to sleep. His mind was a swirling mixture of anger, humiliation, and a sense of having a foundation you thought was solid suddenly knocked out from under you.

I tried opening with humor. _If it makes you feel any better, my Mom apparently just dumped Hopper for Mr. Clarke._

_Hopper won’t let me see El, and now Max has her convinced I’m a liar because I told her my grandma died._

_You didn’t just tell her about Hopper?_

_No, I didn’t want her to get in another fight with him._

_She’s downstairs, if you want to talk._

_I probably look like shit. Does she know?_

_She knows you heard your mom saying something and now you’re mad at her. I’m not sure if she quite grasps the concept of infidelity._

_This kid can quote Dynasty by heart, I’m pretty sure she gets it._

_There wasn’t actually infidelity, by the way. She was going to, but she saw Holly asleep and decided not to at the last minute._

_Is that supposed to make me get over it?_

_No. You have every right to feel this way. I just didn’t want you to think your whole world was going to come crashing down around you._

_My parents don’t love each other._

_They probably never did, but they love you. Really, I’ve seen it. I don’t think they’re going to get divorced, at least not until Holly’s through school._

_What if Dad finds out?_

_He still doesn’t realize you’re dating the escapee from a government lab that you hid in his basement for a week and then pined after for a year. I don’t think he’s going to find out about this._

Mike sat up. He really did look like shit. “Alright, I’m going to wash my face and then go talk to El.”


	19. The Sauna

**Scott Clarke**

It was somehow decided that Dr. Owens, the man from the government, would ride with me. We would follow Mrs. Wheeler and the kids in her station wagon, while Chief Hopper, Nancy Wheeler, and Jonathan Byers went to the pool to make sure there weren’t any potential witnesses.

I cleared my throat. “As a teacher, I really have to object to the kind of experiments you’re doing.”

“We’ve stopped the experiments. Brenner didn’t have authorization to go as far as he did.”

“But now we’re relying on the same children to stop this virus?”

“Will and Jonathan are the only people, in the free world at least, who can accurately diagnose an infection. And Jane’s the only person in history who’s successfully defeated this thing.”

He had an unassailable point, although I didn’t think it got him off the hook ethically as much as he seemed to.

“She’s not really Mike’s cousin, is she?”

“Huh?”

“I saw her in the hallways at school, after Will went missing. They told me she was Mike’s cousin Eleanor from Sweden.”

“That must have just been the story they made up. I wasn’t involved in this whole deal yet.”

“You know, after I saw them kissing at the Snow Ball, I added an entire lesson on inbreeding to the genetics unit.”

“Interesting field, genetics.”

We pulled up to the Mayfield house. In the waning light, I watched Mrs. Wheeler walk up to the front door with a plate of brownies while the kids snuck around the side.

“So are you going to do anything about Max?”

“That’s really an issue for the local authorities.”

“It’s hard to get them to take these things seriously. They think it’s just discipline.”

“The chief might be a little more sympathetic, once we get this whole issue taken care of.”

Mrs. Wheeler said her goodbyes and walked back to the car. As soon as the porch light went off, the kids emerged dragging the limp body of Billy Hargrove. He’d never been a student of mine – they only moved to Hawkins the year before – but I was still a little upset at the cavalier way everyone seemed to be treating this whole situation.

“Will there be any long-term effects?”

“Will has what we call post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“I’ve read about that. It happens to war veterans?”

“Mostly, but occasionally to victims of violent crimes, rape, kidnapping…”

“Is he seeing any sort of counselor?”

“Unfortunately, I’m the only licensed psychologist with the necessary security clearances, and I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment.”

We parked in the swimming pool’s lot.

“I’ll take the blowtorch,” Dr. Owens offered, “you just hang back.”

Billy was starting to come to as they dragged him out of the car. By the time they got him into the sauna and barred the door, he was fully awake. He said nothing, but began frantically trying to escape the sauna. Jonathan looked at him through the window.

“Ok, the shadow monster’s mostly taken over, but there’s still a little Billy left. I’m getting snippets from his childhood.”

Billy, or rather whatever had possessed Billy, ignored Jonathan and focused on his stepsister.

“Max, let me out of here! Let me out.” His voice seemed to falter.

“The sauna’s working!” Jonathan called. “Billy, you can fight it off. Billy, the wave was seven feet remember? Remember how proud your mom was of you.”

“You little shit’s thing this is funny?”

Jonathan seemed to change tactics. “Come on Billy, you’re not going to let this thing make you its bitch, are you? My little brother fought that thing off when he was thirteen, and he’s gay.”

I looked over at Will, who was holding hands with Jason Ellis. I had not seen that coming. I mean, I knew the other kids said mean things about Will, but Jason was the last child you would suspect of something like that. Very athletic with his tennis, always got straight A’s, a bit of a teacher’s pet if I had to be honest. I guess it just goes to show you never can tell.

Jonathan raised his voice to be heard over Billy’s shouts. “You want everyone to know a gay thirteen-year-old beat this monster, and King Billy couldn’t.”

“Open the god-damn door!”

“You know maybe your Dad’s right, Billy, maybe you are just a pussy. Yeah, I think that’s right. You were too pussy to stand up for Max, now you’re too pussy to stand up to this thing. Is that why you did what it told you, took Heather to it? Because you’re a pussy Billy?”

Billy disappeared from the window, and we could hear incoherent screaming, then sobbing.

“It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.”

“We know it’s not your fault, Billy. You just have to fight it off. Come on, fight it off Billy. Show the shadow who’s boss. Show your dad. If you can kick this shadow’s ass, you can kick his. Come on, Billy. Get rid of this virus so you can finally stick it to your old man.”

“Please, Max. Please believe me, it’s not my fault.”

“Billy, where did it get you?”

Billy’s cries were now totally unintelligible, but I assumed Jonathan could see what he was thinking.

“Oh, shit, it’s found a cooler spot. Get back from the door!”

There was a sudden crash, and then Billy burst through the window.

“Let me out you bitch! Let me out!” He was waving a shard of tile, banging it against the door. Dr. Owen’s stepped forward and turned the blowtorch on.

“Wait,” I called, “don’t get it too close.”

Ignoring me, Owens pointed the blowtorch directly at Billy’s hand. He dropped the tile, and black lines began crawling up his veins toward his throat. He opened his mouth and a black cloud flew out. Then he collapsed on the floor of the sauna.


	20. Loose Ends

**Chief Jim Hopper**

Mike Wheeler pounced on the Hargrove kid as soon as we got the door to the sauna open.

“You stupid,” kick, “fucking,” kick, “piece,” kick, “of shit.”

“Shouldn’t you, you know, stop him from doing that?” Joyce asked.

“Nugent wannabe,” kick, “mullet-wearing,” kick, “asshole.”

“I’m actually kind of enjoying watching him do it to someone else for a change.”

“Hop…”

“Fine. Hey, kid. We’ve got to keep him alive so he can tell us where the monster is.”

“What, now you’re going to fucking start on me?”

“Michael!”

I filed Karen Wheeler away as a potential ally and pushed the kid away from Hargrove.

“s-steel mill,” Hargrove whispered.

“Is there a steel mill around here?” Owens asked.

“It closed down back in ’82. Actually, it’d be the perfect place for something like that to hide. The only people who go there anymore are kids trying to get high. And lucky for us, it’s on the way to Hawkins Memorial.”

We put Hargrove in the back of my truck, with Owens, Will Byers, and the Ellis kid in the cab. I looked in the rearview mirror as we drew closer to the mill.

“You feeling anything?”

“Yeah, it’s a lot stronger this time. Ow, ow, ow. Get away from it! Get away!”

Will and Ellis were both screaming, and I gunned the engine. Byers’ head snapped back as we passed the mill, and I swear, I could feel something pulling on the back of the truck.

“Owens, you need to do something about that right the fuck now!”

“I’m calling in napalm.” Owens used my radio to call Grissom, and a few seconds later we heard fighter jets screaming overhead, followed that a dull thud that I remembered from Vietnam.”

A voice crackled over the radio. “Sir, we’ve got a problem with Driscoll.”

“What is it?”

“She, uh, the best way to describe it is that she melted. And, um the remains, are, um, moving.”

I grabbed the microphone from Owens. “Burn it. Now!”

“Yes, sir.”

The problem had been contained by the time we got to the hospital, at the cost of setting off a smoke alarm and getting the hospital evacuated, with the exception of the wing that the CIA had taken over.

“Ok, we need to figure out who else is infected.”

“Heather,” Hargrove moaned.

“Heather Holloway?”

“It wanted us to take her parents.”

“Ok, do you have an address.”

“I don’t…I don’t remember.”

“Shit. Flo’s gone for the day.”

“We have the address in our database,” Owens assured me. “It’ll just take a minute.”

It did only take a minute, but the Holloways were long gone by the time I got there, leaving only a trail of blood leading to the front door. They were eventually able to match the bloodstain to a fragment of bone found in the ruins of the mill through some sort of chemical test.

By the time I drove back to the hospital, the Army had the area around the mill cordoned off with fire trucks. There were hordes of rats running towards the flames and five people trying to break through the cordon. You didn’t need to be a mind reader to realize they were infected. I radioed Owens, and he ordered the troops to let them through, and then turn their flamethrowers as close to them as they could without actually setting them on fire. It worked for four of the infected, but Bruce Lowe, the deputy editor of the post, burst into a mass of black goo.

It looked like the Army had things more or less under control, so I went to check on the kids. They had split off into pairs, except for Dustin, with Joyce and Karen in the center. I took my seat with the adults.

“Do you ever miss the days when those kids didn’t know what the difference between a girl and a gremlin?”

“Gremlin?”

“Isn’t that a thing in their little game?”

“You’re thinking of goblins,” Joyce explained.

“Actually, I was taking a stab in the dark.”

I followed Karen’s gaze over to Mike, who was talking loud enough for us to overhear.

“I guess I just thought that once you were back, everything would be…good.”

I rolled my eyes. “Your kid has a lot to learn about the world, Karen.”

“Shit, I need to call Ted. What am I going to tell him?”

“The Hargrove kid had a car accident, you were the first person on the scene, so you drove him to the hospital and waited until his parents showed up. Speaking of which, did Owens say anything about notifying next of kin? I’d like to have a little chat with Neil Hargrove.”

“You’d better talk to Max first.”

“Yeah, I guess a 17-year-old mind reader told me won’t hold up in court.”

I went over and sat down next to Max and Lucas.

“Hey, Lucas, can you give us a second?”

“Yeah.” He stood up and went to hover anxiously next to Dustin.

“Am I in trouble?”

“No, but I think your stepdad might be.”

“It’s not as bad as Jonathan made it sound.”

“See, I want to believe you. It’s just I noticed that it was about 90 degrees out today and you’re wearing a jacket. You want to roll up your sleeves real quick?”

“Fine.”

“That a cigarette burn?”

“Yeah.”

“Neil give it to you?”

“Look, I know it’s your job and all, but without me and Billy to pick on, he’s going to be ten times worse to my mom, so can you please just drop it?” She finally looked up at me, tears welling in her eyes.

“There’s a, um, center in Bloomington that works with women like your mom. They can set her up with a lawyer and everything, if she needs a place to stay. I promise, kid, you don’t have to handle this by yourself.”

She started sobbing, and I cleared out so that her friends could take care of her. By this point, Jonathan and Nancy had showed back up.

“Where the heck have you two been?”

“We, um, I think we found one of the Russians.”

“Guy who looks like the Terminator, drives a motorcycle?”

“Yeah.”

“Funny, I think I ran into him outside Mayor Kline’s office.”

“I heard you had an interesting conversation with the mayor.”

“Yeah, there might have been a house call. Between you and me, I don’t think he’ll be the mayor for very long.”

Owens tapped me on the shoulder. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

“I realize you don’t want to make the Russian stuff public, but there’s plenty of garden-variety corruption…”

“Larry’s working for us now. In fact, I’m going to introduce him to his case officer right now. Ready, Jon?”

“Yeah,” Jonathan turned back to me. “So, I bought a waffle iron with my first paycheck. If you want to bring Jane over tomorrow, I’ll show her what the real thing tastes like.”

I sat down next to Joyce again.

“So, it sounds like you’re playing hostess tomorrow.” I looked at my watch. “Sorry, today.”

“Can Jane come?”

“I guess. Not like it’s a school night.”

“ _Mike_ will be there.”

I sighed. “I guess I can’t keep them away from each other completely.”

“She could do a lot worse than Mike, you know.”

“If you’d dated a boy in high school who mouthed off like that, your dad would have shown up at his door with a shotgun.”

“I married Lonnie Byers.”

“Your point being?”

“You have to give her the chance to figure out how to stand up to guys while she can still come to you if she really needs help. Especially as sheltered as she’s been.”

“Dunno if sheltered’s the word I’d use.

“You know what I meant.”

“Yeah….I am really not looking forward to the start of the school year.”

“My point is, a girl who gets out in the world with her father having called all the shots her whole life will be vulnerable to guys a lot worse than Mike Wheeler.”

“Ok, I get it. They can see each other _if_ he’s respectful.”

“Speaking of worse guys, I think those are the Hargroves.”

There was a couple talking to the receptionist. The woman had a nervous expression and the same coloring as Max. The man looked pissed. I came up to them as he was trying to get the receptionist’s attention.

“Excuse me, are you Neil Hargrove?”

“Yes, did Billy do something wrong?”

“You’re under arrest for one, no go ahead and make that two counts of child abuse.”


	21. Call the Doctor

**Dr. Phyllis Ellis**

I bolted upright. It’s never a good thing when the phone rings at 2:00 a.m.

“Hello, who is this?”

“This is Jim Hopper, Hawkins police. The, uh, women’s center in Bloomington told me to call this number for a pediatrician who would handle domestics.”

“This is Dr. Ellis.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s just, I think the kid is a friend of your son.”

“Where is she now?”

“Hawkins Memorial.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Listen, you’re going to want to detour around the old steel mill. There’s a big fire.”

When I got to the hospital, the police chief was standing by the front entrance with Will Byers’ mother and a man I didn’t recognize. Hopper introduced him as Dr. Owens.

“Before we go any further, do you promise not to reveal what you learn tonight to anyone else?”

“I’m bound by medical confidentiality.”

“That’s not good enough.”

Chief Hopper sighed. “If she tells anyone what she sees tonight, she has to tell them why she was called here, which means she has to tell them Maxine was abused, which means you can take away her license, which is going to cost her far more money than she would make from selling her story to Geraldo or whoever.”

“What exactly are you about to tell me?”

“The Hawkins National Laboratory was engaged in experiments involving young children with, let’s say, unique capabilities.”

“And this kid, ‘Maxine,’ is one of them?” The name was vaguely familiar. A girl with flaming red hair and a skateboard who went by Max.

“No, but there were a series of incidents leading up to the lab’s closure and continuing through tonight. We’re fairly sure everything is contained now.”

“Max was involved in some of the incidents, and her stepbrother was infected.”

“Infected?”

“Yeah, so they were doing these experiments on psychic kids and Jane, that’s one of the kids, accidentally opened a portal to another dimension, which, among other things, released a sort of hive-mind virus that infected Max’s stepbrother, and, um, before that infected Will Byers who is in a homosexual relationship with your son.”

“You know, now that I think of it, I didn’t hear Jason come in tonight.”

“Yeah, uhm, he’s in the waiting room with the other kids. I just wanted to cushion the shock a little.”

Jason turned out to be asleep on one of the chairs, his head resting on Will’s shoulder. Will had an arm wrapped around him, and was still barely awake. I decided I’d handle him when I’d taken care of Maxine.

She was sitting on an exam table in a private room. “Mrs. Ellis?”

“Dr. Ellis, actually. I’m going to ask you a few questions, and do an exam just to make sure everything’s ok, ok?”

“Fine.”

Physically, there was nothing more severe than a few bruises and first-degree burns. I let her get dressed and started in on the questions.

“So, Max, is your dad…?”

“He’s not my dad.” There was an encouraging note of defiance in her voice.

“I mean, did your dad ever hurt you?”

“No. Mom said he was careless, but he never got angry like Papa. We used to do fun things together, Mom was always trying to get me to be more ‘lady-like,’ but he’d let me skateboard and…”

“Papa?”

“Neil insisted that I refer to him as my father, so I used the name Jane called…I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Does this involve the lab?”

“Yeah, you know?”

“Chief Hopper told me a little, I think he held off on some of the details.”

“Ok, so the mad scientist who was running the whole thing made Eleven, that’s Jane…”

“Eleven?”

“They gave them numbers and tattooed them on their arms. Jane’s 11, Jonathan’s 14, and Will’s 15. But he made Jane call him Papa, and Neil insisted that I call him my father a few weeks after we moved to Hawkins. So I decided on Papa because _I’d_ know that I was being disrespectful but _he_ wouldn’t.”

“Why did you move to Hawkins?”

“I think Neil picked a random town on the map. He said we needed a ‘fresh start.’”

“Was it to get away from your dad?”

“Yeah, and Billy was getting in trouble.”

“Did Billy ever hurt you?”

“At first. When the Mindflayer possessed Will, Hopper told us to wait in the Byers’ house with Steve Harrington. I guess Papa sent him to look for me, and he thought Steve was molesting us or something. Anyway, he was beating up Steve pretty bad, and I stuck him in the neck with the syringe they used to put Will to sleep. Then I threatened him with the baseball bat Steve uses to fight demogorgons.”

“Sorry, can you explain the Mindflayer and demogorgons really quick?”

“So, Eleven accidentally opened a gate to the Upside Down. It’s a parallel dimension, Will says it’s like an evil version of our world. The demogorgons are these monsters that live in it, they have a mouth that opens like a flower, with rows and rows of teeth, and they’re super strong, but you can fight them the same way you’d fight a wolf or a bear. The Mindflayer, Will calls it the Shadow Monster, is like a virus, but it has a sort of mind, and everything it infects comes under its control. Jonathan says that when he goes into the mind of someone who’s infected, it’s not thoughts like a person or even an animal would have, it’s just anger and a need to spread, to kill.”

“And this, mindflayer or shadow monster infected Billy?”

“Yeah, but just this week. That’s not why he was an asshole before.”

“It sounds like maybe he was following his father’s example.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. Neil would punish him for something, and then he’d go pick a fight with me.”

“It sounds like maybe you’d be better off not staying with him from now on. Does he have any other family or friends he could stay with?”

“I know his mom left Neil. He was probably the same way with her.”

“Ok, we’ll try to track his mom down and figure out somewhere for you and your mom to stay.”

“Can we stay in Hawkins? It’s just, my friends are here.”


	22. The Shame Was on the Other Side

**Joyce Arthur**

Jonathan shooed me out of the kitchen as soon as I’d gotten the plates out. Mismatched and cracked, and here I was serving breakfast to Karen Wheeler and Dr. Ellis.

I joined them out on the porch to give the kids some space, and to sound out Dr. Ellis about the boys.

“I hope last night wasn’t too much of a shock, Dr. Ellis.”

“Please, call me Phyllis. You know, I’d heard all kinds of wild rumors about that lab, aliens and teleportation and that sort of thing, but I would never have imagined they were experimenting on kids.”

“They started with adults. Jane’s mother. I guess they thought whatever it is is inherited, but the boys sure didn’t get it from me.” I had somehow failed to realize that my husband was pimping my boys out to a mad scientist right under my nose, which I’m pretty sure disqualifies you as a psychic.

“Has anyone tried to get in contact with her mother?”

“She’s with her sister in Bloomington. She, ah, she tried so hard to get her little girl back. We think what happened is that she was attracting too much attention, so they electrocuted her until she was permanently catatonic.”

“My God.” Karen sounded shocked.

“You can see why I didn’t want to tell you at first.”

I turned back to Phyllis. “And, Will and Jason?”

“Oh, that wasn’t a surprise. I mean, he never said anything, but I noticed that he was spending a lot of time with Will and less time with his old friends. And, when he was younger he preferred playing with Amy’s friends to other boys. I remember the Christmas he was four, she got a dolly and he wanted one of his own so badly. We were worried he would get teased so we told him that girls got to play with dollies and boys got to play with trucks. I wish to God I’d just bought him the doll and said anyone who had a problem with it could go to hell.”

Karen tried to empathize. “It seems like you try so hard to give them a good life, and then you make one tiny little mistake and everything falls to pieces.”

“What about Will?”

“It was nothing as specific as that, but, well, his father noticed before I did. Used to try to toughen him up…” I trailed off, not wanting to let Phyllis and Karen know what I’d let Lonnie do to them.

“Do the boys see much of their father.”

“I tried to get him to visit the year or so after he left, take them to ball games and things like that, but he just wasn’t interested. Of course, now he’s trying to get custody.”

“Is there a reason?”

“He was getting a stipend from the Department of Energy, for, for bringing the boys to them. After Will got sick, they transferred the stipend to me, and I guess he needed the money. He, uh, has another son. The boys don’t know about that yet. I’m just hoping that Owens and Hopper can sway the judge.”

“Joyce…” Phyllis paused for a second before continuing, “forgive me if this is an inappropriate question, but was the boys’ father ever violent with either you or them?”

She kept talking while I tried to think of an answer. “It’s just that, the women’s shelter I volunteer with can get you in touch with a lawyer who handles custody cases.”


	23. Papa Don't Preach

**Ted Wheeler**

For some reason, Mike was in one of his moods the first week of July, but he was over it enough to go to the carnival with his friends, and Nancy was off somewhere with the new boyfriend. Personally, I would have preferred it if she were still going out with Steve Harrington, a clean-cut boy with good prospects who wouldn’t try any funny business, or if he did, would at least be smart about it, but Karen assured me that this kid was a better bet than his last name would suggest.

Karen and I took Holly to the carnival. She was starting to get sleepy so we drove her home right after the fireworks. After we had gotten her put to bed, Karen poured us both a glass of wine.

“So Joyce has a new job.”

“I guess Melvald’s is just about out of business with that new mall opening up.”

“They’re having a close-out sale.”

“Pity. But, it’s the price of progress I guess.”

“I suppose so. It’s with the women’s center in Bloomington that Phyllis volunteers for.”

“Doc Ellis’ wife?”

“Mm-hm.”

“She, a, uh, lady doctor?”

“Pediatrician. It’s for women whose husbands, well, you know.”

“Right to the moon, Alice?”

“Exactly.”

“Didn’t everyone say Lonnie used to knock Joyce around?”

“I think that’s why she was interested in the job.”

I cleared my throat. “You know, honey, a lot of boys with fathers like that turn out that way themselves.”

“But a lot decide they’ll never be like they’re fathers.”

“I suppose so, but how do you tell which is which?”

“Woman’s intuition.”

“If you say so.” I wasn’t convinced, but I could tell I wasn’t getting anywhere tonight.

“Anyway, I was thinking of trying to put together a fundraiser for them.”

“Sounds like a worthy cause, any particular reason you’re interested in it now?”

“Do you remember Mike’s friend Max?”

“Is he the one with the funny teeth?”

“That’s Dustin. Max is a girl, short for Maxine. They arrested her stepfather for beating her last week.”

“Is that why Mike’s been so grumpy?”

“Probably. Anyway, you just never think about something like that happening so close to home.”

“I think it’ll be good for Mike to spend more time with Dr. Ellis’ son, Justin?”

“Jason.”

“Jason, right. Maybe he’ll start having more normal interests, spend less time with the Byers kid.”

“Will’s a good kid.”

“You know they say he’s a little, well, light in the loafers.”

“He’s never tried anything with Mike.”

“Not yet, but to be honest they’ve always been unusually close, and I’m a little worried that Mike’s fourteen now and he’s never expressed any interest in a girl. I mean, I know he wouldn’t have a chance with any of them, but you’d think he at least would have had a hopeless crush or two.”

“He’s dating Chief Hopper’s daughter.”

“The one who was in a cult?”

“Yes, and Joyce caught Will and Jason in bed together a few months ago.”

“Should, we, um, talk to Mike about that?”

“Don’t say anything, you’ll just set him off again.”

I retreated to a safer topic. “So this fundraiser, you were thinking about doing it at the house?”

“Phyllis has a presentation she gives. I was thinking of hosting the Republican Women’s Federation and the Junior League, maybe the Methodist Women.”

“You want me to keep the kids out of your hair?”

“Mike and Nancy will take care of themselves, if you could just take Holly somewhere for the day.”

We finished our wine and went to bed, but I lay awake worrying about the kids. It’s a strange world we brought them into.


	24. Seven Feet

**Nancy Wheeler**

Mom and I started volunteering together with the women’s center, even though I was busier than ever trying to keep the paper going with most of the editorial staff suddenly missing. It was a good way for us to ‘bond,’ and gave Mom something more constructive to do with her free time. Part of my job was to use my investigative skills to track down Billy’s mother. We wanted to have him stay with her until he turned 18, which would get him out of Max and Susan’s hair, although we weren’t sure how he’d feel about that.

Jonathan volunteered to go with me to pick her up from the airport.

“I know what she looks like.”

“You’re sure this isn’t because you’re tired of plying Russian scientists with strawberry slushies?”

“Slurpees, and it has to be Cherry. You get him strawberry, and he totally clams up.”

“You can’t just read his mind?”

“My Russian’s a little rusty.”

“I didn’t know you spoke Russian at all.”

“They taught us in the lab. The original plan for Will and I was to have us stationed in Moscow so we could access officials at public events. But I haven’t studied much in the past eight years.”

“You know, Murray…”

“…has no idea about Starcourt, and we’d like to keep it that way. Also, he’d probably try to use his matchmaking skills on my Mom and Hopper.”

“I think they’re good together. I mean, from the outside it makes no sense, but when you think about all that we’ve been through…”

“I’m fine for them to get together, I’d just like for them to wait until I’m in college.”

“What, you’re afraid he’s going to make you call him dad or something?”

“I realize that my family situation is less than ideal, but it does afford a certain degree of independence. For one thing, I doubt Hopper would be thrilled about you sleeping over, especially if Jane…”

“Your mom doesn’t know…”

“She pretends not to know. So, do you want me to come with you or should I wait and talk to her at the hospital?”

“Why do you need to talk to her?”

“Owens wants me to handle the disclosure.”

“We’re disclosing?”

“Everybody who was infected and survived gets a stipend. Billy’s will be paid to whoever has custody until he turns 18. Hopefully, that will be enough of an incentive for her to take him off our hands.”

“Okay, but we take your car.”

Jonathan had finally traded in the ancient LTD for a government-issued Suburban. It would have plenty of room for however much luggage Billy’s mother, Patricia, brought with her.

“Deal.”

It turned out that Patricia only bought one suitcase, which she stowed in the back. I tried to make conversation over Jonathan’s Iggy Pop tape.

“So, you live in Durham now?”

“Yes, Wendy teaches at Duke and I work in the faculty daycare.”

“Wendy?”

“My, umm, we live together.”

That was going to make things complicated, much more complicated.

“Has, um, has Billy met Wendy?”

“Not in person, but Neil told me about him. He, um, he never used to let me be alone with other men, but he never suspected Wendy until I’d left. Billy would call and beg me to come back, and I could tell that Neil had told him it was all Wendy’s fault.”

Jonathan turned off the tape.

“The plan was to get away, get somewhere safe, and then sue for custody, but the courts…”

“Because you were living with another woman?”

“Yes. Does Billy totally hate me now?”

“Umm…Jonathan, do you want to handle this?”

“So, how much did they tell you about the lab on the phone?”

“There was a leak of some sort of virus that affected Billy mentally. They had to use heat to treat it and he burned his hand.”

“So, the lab was doing experiments in parapsychology. Remote viewing, mind reading, that sort of thing.”

I could see Patricia’s eyes widening in the rearview mirror.

“I was a test subject. When Billy was infected, I saw into his mind. There’s a lot of anger at you there, and a lot of his dad. But there was one memory of you that he turned to when he got sick. Most people who got infected were taken over completely, but that memory was strong enough for him to partially fight him off. It’s the only reason he’s alive now.”

“It was…”

“Seven feet.”


	25. The End

**Cynthia Ross**

The final straw came when Lonnie got fired at the garage. We didn’t have any other way to get money so he decided that the boys were coming with him no matter what the police chief said. We left Indianapolis right after I got off work, and pulled into Lonnie’s old place in Hawkins. There weren’t any cars at the house.

“They must not have gotten back,” Lonnie surmised. “We’ll wait inside.”

When we got inside, it was clear that someone was home. Two someones, and it sounded like they were going at it. Lonnie drew his gun and walked carefully down the hallway. He threw the door open. It was two teenage boys, one of them was obviously his son. It must have been Will, the one he was always complaining about being queer. When he recognized Lonnie, Will stood in front of the other one, trying to protect him.

“Daddy, please no.”

“Shut up you little faggot! Is this what your mother lets you do? Suck face with your perverted little friends?”

Lonnie brought the butt-end of the pistol down onto the boy’s head. He started crying, and that made Nicholas cry too. I took him into the other room to calm him down. I was so focused on Nicholas that I didn’t notice the other boy run to the phone and dial 911. I didn’t notice anything except Nicholas until a cup burst through the door followed by Lonnie’s older son.

The cop drew his gun and shouted for Lonnie to freeze.

“You want me to take him in?” he asked Jonathan.

“No, I have a better idea.”

“Look, kid. I just want to talk.” Lonnie was trying to talk our way out of this.

“No! You are going to stand here, and I am going to show you what you’ve done.”

Jonathan affixed Lonnie with a determined stare, and all of a sudden every light in the house got crazily bright.

“You’re spilling over, kid,” the cop warned, but Jonathan didn’t take any notice. He didn’t seem to notice that his nose was bleeding either.

And then, all of a sudden, it was like I was in his memories, looking up from a child’s point of view at a younger Lonnie, a very angry Lonnie. The child sensed when he was going to throw a punch and dodged out of the way, which only made Lonnie madder. And then I could see him fighting with Joyce. It looked a lot like when he and I would get in a fight. I had always felt like it was my fault when I’d make him mad, and believed everything he said about Joyce, but now I was wondering if I’d been wrong the whole time.

The memories kept coming. Their first trip to that lab, and then the experiments. Lonnie hadn’t told me the experiments were like that. Then Will’s tears the day Lonnie left. Him going missing. Lonnie trying to get a payout from the quarry, a girl stealing the gun from Lonnie’s car the day of the funeral.

And then the memories faded and the lights went back to normal. Lonnie looked like I’d never seen him before, ashen faced and wide-eyed. He turned to me. “I’ll go. K-keep the car.” And then he ran out of the house.

Jonathan and the other boy were both fussing over Will until the cop shooed them away so he could do first aid. Jonathan went over to me and the baby.

“Is he…Lonnie’s?”

I nodded. “His name’s Nicholas.”

Jonathan took the baby from me and began bouncing him up and down. “Hey, Nicholas. It’s alright, your big brother’s here…”

In what seemed like a couple of minutes, the house filled with teenagers, clearly friends of Will by the way they got upset when they saw him, Joyce, who helped Will to the car so they could take him to the hospital, and another adult woman, better dressed than Joyce.

“I’m Karen,” she extended a hand to me, “Mike’s mom.” I had no idea who Mike was, maybe the kid Will had been making out with? “You must be Cynthia.”

“Y-yes.”

“I, um, I volunteer for a women’s center. They can help you get back on your feet, find a place to live.”

I started to cry, and Karen patted me on the shoulder.

“Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.” 


End file.
